Contents

Plot

At the beginning, Sam Puckett is seen motorcycling down a street. She is in Los Angeles, saying she is 'looking for fun', due to Carly moving to Italy. Cat Valentine, a few moments later, rides a bike down the street and encounters two kids looking for a kitten named "Pawsley." She looks in a trash can and falls in, and pops out with the kitten, which the kids take and walk off. She drops her gum in the trash can and reaches back down to pick it up, but a garbage truck drives by and lifts up the trash can, with Cat still inside looking for her gum. Sam is standing nearby, eating a burrito and sees Cat get poured into the garbage truck. She throws her burrito into the street (a little sadly) and begins to run after the truck to tell the man driving that there is a girl inside. Sam climbs inside the garbage truck when she cannot get the drivers attention and finds Cat flung upside down inside. She pulls Cat's head out of the garbage and stands her upright, to which Cat exclaims: "Wow! That was so fun!" Sam halfheartedly agrees. Cat recognizes Sam from iCarly and seems very excited to meet her, but Sam is worried about being stuck in the truck and tells Cat they have to get out. Just then, the garbage truck picks up another garbage can and dumps it into the truck with a loud noise. Cat nervously asks what the noises is and Sam says it's the sound of two girls about to be crushed by garbage. True to her ditsy nature, Cat says: "You don't mean us, right?" Sam tries to help Cat out of the truck, but Cat faints because she is scared. Sam saves an unconscious Cat from the truck.

After getting out of the truck, Sam wakes Cat by using a leaf blower on her.
Cat asks Sam where they are and what the horrible smell around them is. Sam informs her that the smell is the two of them because they went "swimming in garbage." Sam says she needs to find a place to hose herself off. To thank Sam for her help, Cat offers to let Sam come with her to her Nona's for a bath. The two pretend to be the daughters of a rich British daughter in order to get a ride in a limo to Nona's. After Sam showers, Sam meets one of Cat's neighbors, Dice, a preteen boy who deals various items, including "celebrity hair." As Cat goes nuts over Justin Bieber's hair and buys it, Dice notices Sam for the first time. Sam offers to sell some of her hair to balance out the cost of Cat's purchase. As Dice leaves, two kids push Cat's grandmother, Nona into the house. She, a part-time babysitter, laments over her inability to cope with such crazy children, and considers moving to Elderly Acres, a nursing home. Cat protests, but Nona is distracted from making her argument by Sam's presence, and agrees to let her stay for the night.

During a rough night's sleep on Cat's sofa-bed, complete with Nona's recurring sleepwalking and getting folded into the sofa itself, Sam admits to Cat that she is in no rush to go back to Seattle. As Carly is in Italy and her mom is "kind of a nut job," she chooses to travel around America on her motorcycle and "see where it takes her." Cat tries to tell Sam that it is she herself who has the power to control her journey and her destination, but phrases it wrong and confuses Sam.

The next morning, Nona asks Sam to take her to Elderly Acres, and Sam proceeds to do so. Cat panics and immediately runs over to the building with two kids and a baby that Nona was supposed to babysit. She figures out that Nona actually wants to stay, and asks her to come visit as much as she can. Meanwhile, Sam has the three kids ride on a nearby scooter, and also does voluntary tattoo work in the requested tattoo man's place, however, screws up at least one of the tattoo requests by tattooing a chicken leg on one man's arm.

Unbeknownst to her, the kids drive to Inside Out Burger, a restaurant, and order food there. They run into some trouble when they realize they do not have money to pay for it, and end up being chased around the parking lot by the manager.

Sam and Cat return to the apartment. Cat starts contemplating how nice it might be to have an apartment to herself, and Sam says she has experience in that area. Cat is confused, saying that she thought Sam lived with her mother. Sam says that living with her mother is a lot like living alone. Dice returns with the scissors and bags for Sam's hair. They realize the kids aren't with them. Dice mentions that he just saw them at Inside Out Burger. They rush over to see that the kids are being chased by the manager. The manager passes out from exhaustion caused by chasing the kids, and Sam and Cat work together to revive him by using a creative form of CPR. As a way to thank them, the manager allows the two to have free cheeseburgers from the restaurant for a lifetime.

With the kids safe and a new burger discount, they return to the apartment, where Cat plays video games with the kids while Dice procures three bags of hair from Sam. The mother of the kids comes back. While the kids explicitly tell her everything, Sam and Cat manage to censor these events by saying it is all part of a video game. The mother pays Sam $150 on the spot, and asks if they can babysit them again. Sam explains that she doesn't live there, but Cat accepts the opportunity.

As the family and Dice leave, Sam jokingly claims she will keep most of the money, but instead gives it all to Cat to support her as she will be living alone for a while.

Sam gets ready to leave, but Cat tells her she thinks that they had fun together and hints at a possible future adventure between them. Sam says she doesn't have anywhere she needs to be, and Cat looks like she needs a roommate.

Cat asks her to stay with her in LA for a while and help her find a roommate, but Sam reveals she has already found Cat a roommate: Her! Cat is overjoyed as "This is the best day ever!" They end the day on a high note by riding on Sam's motorcycle on their way to eat at Inside Out Burger with Cat teasing Sam and Sam says "This is gonna be a long ride."

Quotes

Food truck worker: Hey, aren't you Sam from iCarly?

Sam: You a cop?

Food truck worker: No.

Sam: Yeah, I'm Sam.

Sam: How are your breakfast burritos?

Food truck worker: Disgusting.

Sam: I'll take a jumbo.

Sam: What's that red-headed chick doing in a trash can ...and why is there a battery in my burrito?

Cat: Oh, please! You saved me from being squished in garbage! Let me repay you with the gift of bathing.

Dice: Guess what I got!

Cat: Ooh! Is it something?

Sam: It's me, Sam! Let me outta this couch!

Cat: That's not how you sleep in a sofa bed!

Cat: I'm gonna faint, I'm gonna puke, I'm gonna fuke!

Old man: I told you I wanted a tattoo of Abraham Lincoln!

Sam: Well, too bad! You got a chicken leg!

Sam: Do you have another robe I could wear? You know, one that doesn't make me look like a vomiting rainbow?

Cat: No, but don't worry. Your clothes are in the dryer.

Sam: And when will they be ready?

Cat: When my Nona comes home and shows me how to start the dryer.

Cat: But I can't live here alone! What if I fall in the toilet and get stuck again?

Nona: I'll just be five blocks away!

Cat: Five blocks?! Nona that's too— [starts arguing with Nona]

Sam: Hey. Hey. Hey! Hey! If she gets stuck in a toilet again, will you please text me a pic of that?

Trivia

Instead of #Pilot, the episode is titled #TheFirstEncounter in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Filming of this episode began on September 19 and ended on September 22, 2012.[6][7]

In this episode, Sam and Cat have the same hairstyles than in their originals shows. Also, the sets of Apartment 22 and Elderly Acres are different. It shows than this episode was produced a time before the others.

The street where the first scene is shot is the same location where, in Drake & Josh, Josh tried to drive his new car (a stick shift) with Drake and Megan in "My Dinner with Bobo," and where the giant cupcake scenes were shot in the Victorious episode "Terror on Cupcake Street."[9]

In the first draft of the pilot script, Sam entered the scene when some mean, tough girls were trying to steal Cat's bike from her. However, this was later changed with the garbage truck rescue.[9]

While Sam and Cat are in the garbage truck, the garbage is closing in (compacting) on the girls.[9]

Maree insisted that she didn't use a stunt double for her fall out of the grocery cart onto the couch and wanted to do it herself.[9]

When Cat opens the lid of the green garbage can, Dan Schneider didn't expect the lid to fall off, but it did so every time. He decided to add the line "Oh the hinge!" for Cat to say when it falls off.[9]

Jennette and Ariana actually hit the door really hard in the scene when they ran out of the apartment.

The couch had an opening on the back as revealed in a 'How we did it'.[10]

This is presumably the only time the original design for Cat's apartment (from this episode onward she sublets from Nona and shares with Sam) is shown on screen. From the next episode forward, it will be redecorated to showcase essences of both Sam and Cat.

Unlike most shows aired on Nick, the end credits were shown on TV similar to what iCarly did in the first season.

This episode marks the first appearance of Nona and Dice and the reappearance of Sam and Cat.

This is the fourth time characters from a past show return in another show. The first time was the iCarly episode "iStart a Fanwar", where Craig, Eric and Gavin from Drake & Josh, as well than Stacey Dillsen from Zoey 101, have been in a minor role as fans. The second was in the episode "iHire an Idiot", where Stacey appears a second time for an one scene role. The third was in the Victorious episode "Helen Back Again", where Helen from Drake & Josh appears as an important role.

This is, however, the first time returning characters have a new show implying an important presence.

This is also the first time these characters are main characters. Every Drake & Josh and Zoey 101 characters who have returned were recurring characters.

We can barely see Tandy during a transition and his face shows "DanWarp".

This episode competed with Disney Channel's night of premiers with Good Luck Charlie,Dog With A Blog,And Austin And Ally. This episode beat all of those shows with 4.1 views.

The console they was playing was a Xbox 360 Slim

Allusions

Inside Out Burger is a parody of In-N-Out Burger. It was also mentioned in Drake & Josh episode, "Driver's License", iCarly episode, "iStart a Fan War", and Victorious episode, "Robarazzi."

When Sam is talking at the beginning, we can see Danwarp in the background.

Character revelations

Goofs

There are cheerings when Sam appears, but none when Cat does.

When Nona stuffed Sam and Cat in the sofa bed, they could have died due to lack of oxygen.

When Cat turns on the light, the same scene when Nona folds up Sam, the lamp turns on. But when Sam uses the lamp to turn off the light, all the lights turn off.

Cat laughs after Nona says that she assumed Sam didn't have a criminal record, but Cat should know Sam had a criminal record because in the iCarly episode, "iToe Fat Cakes", they say that Sam had just went ten days without getting into trouble and that she hadn't done that since she was four.

Despite Cat knows about iCarly, she's probably not a fan at the point to have seen every webcast.

At the end of "iGoodbye", Sam rides out of Seattle without packing. However, in the beginning of this episode, she was wearing different clothes.

Sam and Cat have seen each other in iParty With Victorious. For some reason, Cat only acknowledged Sam from iCarly the fourth time they see each other, which is at the beginning. Also, Sam called her "red-headed chick" when she first sees her but she should know her name. However, Sam knew her name after Cat said "Shut up, my name is Cat!" when she runs into the two boys looking for their cat.

Dan Schneider explained than the reason is than he though the characters didn't really interact during that episode, so it's like they never met before.

However, it is said that Sam and Cat may be non-canon, but nothing has been confirmed so far.

It is unknown how Sam got her motorcycle back since she rode in the limo on her way to Cat's apartment.

Mistake

Dice couldn't have possibly know Sam and Cat were babysitting Max and Chloe because they didn't tell him, plus Nona was going to babysit them.

When they were Playing the Xbox , no cable was plugged in to output it to the TV

Running gags

Series continuity

The episode begins with Sam riding a motorcycle into Los Angeles, a continuation from when she rides out of Seattle into the iCarly finale "iGoodbye."

Cat's stuffed giraffe, Mr. Purple, from Victorious, is seen in her bike basket in the beginning (and continues to appear through the show).

Despite being the first episode of the show and the first time Sam and Cat are babysitting in the show, this is the second time that Cat does babysitting. The first was when she kept Mabel and Wilson for Trina in iParty with Victorious.

Both times, she lost the kids.

International premieres

August 12, 2013 (Canada | YTV)

September 7, 2013 (Canada | Nickelodeon)

September 28, 2013 (Germany, Netherlands, Poland)

September 29, 2013 (Scandinavia)

October 11, 2013 (Australia & New Zealand, Southeast Asia)

October 14, 2013 (UK & Ireland)

October 19, 2013 (Latin America)

October 30, 2013 (France)

November 4, 2013 (Italy, Portugal, Spain)

November 11, 2013 (Turkey)

December 31, 2013 (Quebec)

February 16, 2014 (Hungary)

February 24, 2014 (Greece)

April 2, 2014 (Japan)

Reception

The episode premiered to 4.156 million viewers. Due to this, it became the first scripted live-action Nickelodeon program to break the 4 million barrier in 2013.[3] It also hit #1 on iTunes on the morning of June 9, 2013.[11]
Joe of Hit Zone gave the premiere episode a good review, saying "Dan Schneider never fails to bring the funny and it looks like he has another hit on his hands with Sam and Cat." [12]